Mary's Rambling Thoughts: Family

We don't live near family. Our "closest" family is about a 5 hour drive but most of our relatives live over 1,000 miles away. So needless to say ALOT of our vacations are used on going to visit our family, which is fine with us.

This summer we have had the opportunity to go and visit quite a bit of our family. This is the first time in 3 years that we have all been able to see ALL of my husband's immediate family within a few months. The last time was when the whole side of that family got together for a vacation in CO.

So in early June we took the van on a 4750 mile road trip to CA. One of the things we like to do on our road trips to make them fun and break them up a little more than just stopping for the night is to make "side" trips. On this trip we were able to not only visit our family but visit more State Capitals, visit the grand canyon, and take the kids to Legoland. We were actually only in Southern CA visiting family for 4 days. But we got to see them and spend time with them so it was a good trip. Here's a few pics of our time with our family.

my niece, Amy, with Lili in the pool

My brother in law showing the kids the pet turtle, Bob, my kids were fascinated

Grandma working on a puzzle with Lili

my husband, Brian and our 2yr old Lili

swimming at my Brother in laws condo pool with my niece

My boys and my niece with Darth Vader Legoman

And then just a couple of weeks ago we were able to go and visit other members of our family in Louisiana and Texas. It was members of my family in Louisiana and more of my husband's family in Texas. So once again we took the van and we went on a 2820 mile road trip this time.

We were once again able to make a couple "side" trips during this road trip and I'll blog about those in the future. But here are a few pictures of our family. The nice thing about going in early August we were able to spend ALOT of our time with family so here are just a FEW pictures of us and our "southern" families.